by Ed James
‘Zenna Abercrombie shifted me from the Shelvey case, so yes, I’m afraid so.’ Temple leaned against the banister. ‘Ms Abercrombie passed Gerald Ogden on to me. Supposed to be the liaison, but it’s like babysitting. He wants us to release young Victoria’s body.’
‘I already gave him the script.’ Fenchurch shook his head. ‘You know him, don’t you?’
‘As he keeps reminding me.’ Temple waved up the stairs. ‘Your boss isn’t in a good mood.’
‘He’s usually in a shit one, so that’s an improvement.’
Temple bellowed with laughter, the hwa bouncing off the walls. His brow creased. ‘How you coping, mate?’
‘It’s over. I’ve finally stopped bashing my head against the wall.’ Fenchurch gripped the banister tight and rested against it. ‘Part of me is glad, but the rest of me . . .’ He let out a deep sigh. ‘The rest of me isn’t finished with these bastards. Not by a long shot.’
‘I thought you’d give up.’
‘They’re still at it, Paul. Howard Savage said they found a girl in March?’
‘Right.’ Temple’s nod disagreed with his grimace. ‘Howard shouldn’t be talking about that, Simon. We’re nowhere near a prosecution.’
‘Well, I’m not giving up. These bastards still have a lot to answer for. I’m going to get them, Paul. Every last one of them. Be lucky if there’s anything left for you to prosecute.’
‘Well, anything I can do, mate.’ Temple squeezed his shoulder. ‘I’ve got to get back to Rose Court. No rest for the wicked, even on a Sunday morning.’
‘See you around.’ Fenchurch climbed the stairs two at a time, the metal ringing out, and pushed into the corridor.
The Incident Room door was open. The squad must’ve doubled overnight. Two shootings in two days. Amazing how the budget flew out of the window just like that. Didn’t matter that they’d died, just how they went.
Fenchurch crept in at the back, lurking between Nelson and Naismith, but getting recognition from neither. Naismith had a scowl on his face like he’d eaten an off curry.
‘—secured.’ Mulholland stood at the front, flanked by Docherty. She swept her gaze around the room, adding a grin. ‘Okay, so I need you all to document your findings. DS Ashkani has a list of open actions and will be coming around to allocate them. Okay? Thanks for your efforts here. It’s not often we get to celebrate a victory like this.’ She grinned around the room again. ‘Drinks in the Conquest at five. Make sure you’re there.’
Fenchurch stood back as the crowd dispersed. Nelson winked and sauntered off to his laptop at the far side of the room.
Docherty strolled over, deep in conversation with Mulholland, then stopped. ‘Oh.’
Mulholland tightened her scarf. ‘Simon, you shouldn’t be here.’
Fenchurch ignored her. ‘Boss, I need a word.’
‘I need a coffee.’ Docherty brushed Mulholland away and held the door. ‘Walk with me.’
Fenchurch was half aware of Mulholland’s glower burning into his back as he left the room. ‘Boss, I take it you heard?’
‘Sodding Dorchester. Never even heard of the place.’
‘I need to speak to my father.’
Docherty stopped by the stairs and let out the mother of all groans. ‘Simon, Dawn and DS Nelson interviewed him first thing. Paul’s approved us charging him.’
‘What? Boss, he was blind drunk. He shouldn’t—’
‘The duty doctor passed him fit for interview. Look, his motor was right next to Blunden’s place.’ Docherty screwed his face tight and groaned again. ‘The murder weapon came from a set we found in his kitchen. It all fits into place.’
‘This is—’
‘That’s him until his court appearance on Monday morning. Leave it.’
Fenchurch huffed out a sigh. Wrong attack. Switch it up. ‘He needs to know what happened.’
‘Christ.’ Docherty stepped out of the way of a couple of uniforms skipping up the steps. ‘Fine. You can go speak to your old boy.’ He grabbed Fenchurch’s arm, steel fingertips digging into soft flesh. ‘But only about Chloe, okay?’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Martin gave Fenchurch a thumbs-up as he left the interview room and locked it behind him. Guy looked ready to reanimate as a zombie.
Docherty stayed by the door, giving him all ten fingers. Ten minutes.
Fenchurch grabbed his dad’s hands, cold and clammy. He got a slight glance, then Dad’s eyes were away again. ‘How are they treating you?’
‘I’ve been better, son.’ Dad let go and sat back in his chair. ‘Been a lot better.’
‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
Hope glinted in Dad’s eyes. Maybe that was just the strip lights. ‘I’m getting out?’
‘I wish.’ Fenchurch sucked in breath like it was courage. He filled his lungs, but it seeped away. ‘That Connolly guy you spoke to . . . he was working for Flick Knife. They were picking up kids. He told us they picked up Chloe.’
‘I know, son. He told me.’
‘It’s not just that . . .’ Fenchurch broke off, panting, the drums beating hard. He got his breathing under control, but they kept on pounding. ‘They found out who I was and it spooked them. So they moved her on, gave her to an adoption agency.’
The whites of Dad’s eyes lost some yellow in among the red veins. ‘They didn’t kill her?’
‘They didn’t kill any of them, Dad.’ Fenchurch gripped the edge of the table tight. ‘When they were done with them, they moved them on to this agency. Lied to them. Made sure the adopters kept them away from London and their past.’
‘What?’ Dad tried to lock eyes with Fenchurch, like when he told him about the birds and the bees. ‘Chloe’s alive?’
‘A couple in Dorchester adopted her.’ Fenchurch scraped at the tabletop, letting the tears slide down his cheeks. ‘Dad, she died not long after they took her in. She was run over by a bus.’
‘She’s dead? Really?’ Water filled Dad’s eyes, his focus unwavering. ‘Jesus Christ. All that wasted effort.’
‘You were right to keep looking.’ Fenchurch clasped his father’s hands again. ‘We know what happened to her.’
‘That’s enough for you, is it?’
‘No, Dad, it’s not.’ Fenchurch folded his arms. ‘But it’s a start. We’ve spent eleven years looking for our keys in the place where the light is, not where we dropped them. She was in Dorchester, not London. Okay? We’ve got leads. Howard Savage is working it.’
Dad slumped back in his seat and smoothed down his moustache. His face was a lawn of salt-and-pepper stubble, blending into the thick brush. ‘Oh.’
‘What happened yesterday, Dad?’ Fenchurch got no reaction from Docherty. No sign of him trying to shut him up.
‘I don’t remember, son.’
Docherty sat down next to Fenchurch. ‘Ian, you need to tell us what happened yesterday.’
‘When?’
‘When do you bloody think? When you killed Flick Knife, you daft sod.’
Dad’s nose wrinkled up. ‘Doc, I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘So take us through what happened, then.’
Dad looked away. ‘I “no commented” my statement, Doc.’ Dad scratched at his moustache like it had fleas. ‘Didn’t want to incriminate myself.’
‘You’re as much of an idiot as your son.’ Docherty thumbed at Fenchurch. ‘Just take us through what happened.’
‘I was at work, right?’ Dad rasped a hand over his stubble. ‘Got in early, like most Saturdays. Had the place to myself.’ He scratched the sandpaper on his chin. ‘I got a call from the front desk, so I went upstairs. Liam Sharpe was there. The journalist who did that piece.’ More scratching at the stubble. ‘We’d been working together, but it’d been on the QT, so I was a bit puzzled at him coming to the station. Anyway, he said some geezer had come forward.’
Docherty nodded. ‘Daniel Connolly?’
‘He’d seen the telly thing. The story in the Post. He was shitt
ing himself, didn’t want to be out in public, so we went to my flat.’ Dad blinked slow and hard. ‘He told us that Blunden led a child sex ring, kidnapping kids off the street.’ He snarled at Docherty. ‘And he told me what they were doing with those kids.’ His gaze just passed over Fenchurch. ‘He said they took Chloe.’ He thumped the table. ‘I saw red. He left, and I had a drink. That nice Scottish stuff you gave me.’
The stuff you bloody nicked.
‘Dad, you should’ve come to me.’
Dad smoothed down his greasy hair. ‘Do you think I don’t realise that?’ He huffed out a groan. ‘But you and me, son, we’re cut from the same cloth.’
Fenchurch settled back in his seat, arms folded. ‘Dad, you—’
Docherty grabbed Fenchurch’s arm and shut him up. ‘Ian, do you remember anything after you started drinking?’
Dad smoothed down his moustache. ‘When Connolly told me what he’d done I smashed the place up.’
Fenchurch grimaced. ‘I saw.’
Docherty shook his head at Fenchurch. ‘Then what?’
‘Next thing I remember is being round there.’ Dad rubbed at the back of his head. ‘Someone hit me from behind, knocked me clean out. Next thing I know, Simon was tearing into the cab office like a raging bull.’
‘You don’t remember how you got there?’
‘Sorry.’ Dad’s lips twitched slowly. ‘Blunden was behind it all. He was the boss.’ His crazed eyes blinked furiously. ‘Connolly told me.’
‘Did Blunden tell you himself when you stabbed him?’
‘I didn’t—’ Dad’s eyes flickered shut. ‘If I stabbed him, I don’t remember.’ He grimaced and opened his eyes. ‘I’ve no idea what happened.’ He leaned across the table. ‘I wish I could help, son.’
‘Is there anything you remember? Anything at all?’
‘It’s just . . . gone.’
Docherty grabbed Fenchurch by the arm and led him away.
‘Boss, I need to—’
‘Simon.’ Docherty ran his tongue through his teeth. ‘I need you to back off. You need to keep yourself a good distance away from this, okay?’
Fenchurch stared around the corridor, looking for anything he could use. Leverage. A baseball bat. Anything. ‘You should be letting Dad help, not locking him up.’
‘Give me a break, Si.’ Docherty gripped him by the shoulder. ‘You’ve had some traumatic news. Go home and spend time with your wife. Try and cope like you didn’t ten years ago.’
‘Eleven.’
‘Just. Go.’
Fenchurch turned into Barford Street and parked behind a Toyota SUV, the skinhead driver scowling at him. Tosser.
Bloody Docherty. Using him to get that information out of Dad.
Fenchurch put the paper bag on the roof and grabbed the coffee tray from the passenger seat, resting it alongside, the bitter aroma escaping the baking car.
Across the street, the patch of pavement where Chloe had been playing . . . Eleven years of misery and questions and confusion and hatred and break-up and resolution and . . .
Fenchurch wiped the tears from his cheeks and grabbed the coffee and pastries.
Whatever happened, happened. Time to move on.
He entered the building and climbed the stairs.
Whistling cannoned around the stairwell, some jaunty classical piece by Mozart or whatever, accompanied by the thunder of feet. His neighbour Quentin was jogging down. He inclined his shaved head at Fenchurch and bounced across the floor tiles. ‘It’s a glorious day, isn’t it?’
Fenchurch smiled as he passed. ‘I’ll give you that cheque for the acid-cleaning deposit tonight.’
‘Sure thing.’ Quentin jogged on the spot. ‘There’s no hurry. They won’t be in until November.’
‘Okay, then. See you around.’ Fenchurch trundled up the stairs, bathed in morning sunlight, careful not to spill any coffee. He put the breakfast on their welcome mat as he unlocked the door. It wasn’t locked.
What the hell? Had I left it open this morning?
He opened the door and stumbled through. ‘Abi?’
Silence.
He walked through to the kitchen and put the coffee and pastries down on the table. ‘Abi? You in?’
Silence.
The Post on Sunday was all over the kitchen table. His press conference had been relegated to a distant memory now, though Liam had a story on the front about an ISIS cell in Clapham.
Chloe’s room was empty, just a typewriter graveyard. ‘Abi?’
In the bathroom, a trail of shampoo suds dowsed in puddles led from the shower cubicle.
Why wouldn’t she have dried herself off? Why didn’t she wash out the soap?
Fenchurch fumbled his phone from his pocket and dialled her number. The ringtone blasted out ‘Human’ by The Killers. Sounded like it was in the living room. Not like her to leave her mobile . . .
He walked into the hall, drums thundering in his ears. Her purse was on the chest of drawers. No sign of her keys.
Shit.
A muffled squeak came from behind him.
Fenchurch paced over to the bedroom door. He nudged it and it swung wide open. ‘Abi?’
The same squeak, louder.
Fenchurch stepped in. ‘You here, love?’
She was by the bed, a towel loosely tied round her, soap suds stuck to her upper arms, her hair white with shampoo.
A masked man held her in a sleeper hold, his gloved hand covering her mouth.
‘Let her go!’
‘You’re still messing about, Fenchurch.’ He spoke with the same robot voice as the phone calls. ‘See what you’ve made us do now?’
Fenchurch couldn’t breathe. ‘I’m giving you one last—’
Crack. Something hit him from behind and Fenchurch tumbled forward.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Cold against his cheek. Wood. Creak. The floorboard, the broken one.
Head on fire. Feels like someone’s clawed my skull apart.
Fenchurch opened his eyes and eased up onto all fours. The bedroom swam beneath him as he struggled to focus. A trail of water ran across the laminate to the doorway.
Shit. Abi!
He pushed himself up to standing. Then slipped back down to a crouch.
Jesus.
The baseball bat was on the floor, rolling around his feet. He picked it up and used it to push himself all the way up.
‘Abi!’
Fenchurch stepped over to the door, woozy and dizzy. He used the bat as a crutch and staggered out into the hall. ‘Abi!’
Silence.
His keys and phone were still there. He grabbed them.
The front door was hanging open. Fenchurch pulled it all the way and walked out into the stairwell. ‘Abi!’
His voice echoed round. No other sounds joined it. No whispers of footsteps.
Dots of moisture lined the route down.
He set off down the steps, his right hand gripping the smooth wood of the rail as he descended, his left keeping the bat from clunking off the steps. At the bottom, the street door was wedged open. He stepped out into the bright morning and spun around.
A car screeched off at the far end of the street, heading right.
Fenchurch jogged off, stabbing at the screen on his phone.
‘Guv?’ Reed sounded like she was in a café. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Kay, can you get hold of the CCTV for my street?’
Fenchurch rattled along the long Camden street, not stopping for the couple trying to cross the pedestrian crossing, and held up the Airwave. ‘Kay, I’m at the end of Offord Road. I think. Which way do I go?’
Sounded like Reed was driving now. ‘Hang on a sec.’ Someone put her phone underwater.
Then a man cleared his throat. ‘Sir, it’s DC Naismith. DS Reed’s on her way over. Take a right.’
Fenchurch hauled the wheel round and cut up a Merc on the mini-roundabout. He squinted up ahead. ‘I’m heading to Pentonville, is that right?’
>
‘Yeah, just before you get there, you should see a little industrial estate on the left. And I mean little.’
‘Got it.’ Fenchurch’s tyres squealed as he pulled in through black bars. ‘Sure it’s here?’
‘That’s where the Toyota went.’
Fenchurch stopped the car and got out. He wheeled around, scanning the cars and mini-factories. Nothing looked like—
Wait.
A Toyota RAV4 sat behind a Mitsubishi van, the doors open.
Fenchurch jogged over. ‘I’ve got it.’ The keys jangled as he leaned in. Empty. He checked the boot, getting a click as it opened. An empty shopping bag. ‘There’s nobody here.’ He stood up and looked around.
Could go through every motor there, but what would that give me? Nobody will have seen anything, they’ll have just—
He swallowed.
Break the chain. They’ll have transferred Abi to another car.
Bloody hell.
‘Sorry, sir, but—’
‘They’ve swapped cars.’ Two CCTV cameras pointed across the car park, avoiding this spot. ‘Clive, can you get the cameras here?’
‘I’m doing my best here, sir. It’s blocked. Hang on. There we go. I can see you. Give us a—’
Fenchurch waved at the camera.
‘Got you.’
‘Wind it back until the RAV4 arrives!’
‘Right.’
‘Do any other cars leave just after?’
‘No.’ He paused. ‘There, gotcha.’
‘Can you see the Morrisons yet?’ Naismith sighed down the line. ‘You should be right by it!’
‘No.’ Fenchurch piled along the road, the old train tracks running on the right, opposite beige-brick flats. He pulled towards a roundabout and the low-slung supermarket came into view. ‘Right, got it now.’ He swerved into the car park. ‘At the back, you say?’
‘Yeah, by the lorry entrance. It’s a Lexus. Hang on, I’ve got a call coming in from DS Reed. Sorry.’
Fenchurch branched off into the layby on the right and dumped the Airwave on the seat.
A blue Lexus hugged the supermarket’s walls, the engine still running.
Fenchurch got out of his car and shot off towards it.
A heavy man in a yellow vest blocked his path, hands raised. ‘Can’t come in here, mate.’